The University of Georgia has established two new award programs to recognize exemplary teaching and research: The University of Georgia Award for Excellence in Teaching honors outstanding instruction by teaching faculty members in non-tenurable positions, while the Team Impact Award recognizes crosscutting teams for their critical research contributions.
“One of my overarching priorities as provost is to foster a culture of academic excellence that incentivizes and recognizes the outstanding contributions of our faculty and staff,” said S. Jack Hu, the university’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “These new awards help further that goal, and I’m looking forward to congratulating the first honorees in the spring.”
Award details
Established based on a recommendation from the UGA Teaching Academy, the University of Georgia Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes the corps of teaching faculty whose time is primarily dedicated to offering outstanding instruction to students, promoting pedagogical innovation and providing an engaging environment for student learning. Each year, one to two full-time faculty members in non-tenurable positions will be selected to receive a $7,500 cash award.
The Team Impact Award recognizes a team for excellence in innovative and impactful scholarship with the potential to fundamentally advance knowledge, understanding and/or applications in ways not achievable by individual investigators or single disciplinary approaches alone. Eligible teams can represent any disciplines but must be composed of at least three distinct disciplines or subdisciplines. The winning team will receive $5,000 for application in its research program.
“As funding agencies have recognized, society’s most complex problems can most optimally be addressed through collaborative work by interdisciplinary teams with diverse perspectives, and for several years we’ve been strengthening the university’s resources for seeding and supporting team projects,” said Karen Burg, vice president for research. “This new award is another example of our commitment to supporting team science and will recognize truly innovative and impactful examples of team research led by UGA faculty.”
Additional resources for faculty
Several units across campus support faculty success and recognition. The Office of Faculty Affairs offers a range of resources for faculty at every career stage, including individual coaching, sessions on mentorship and leadership development programming. The Keys to UGA: New Faculty Academy continues this fall with an October session on launching research, scholarship and creative activities at UGA and a November session on public service, outreach and engagement. Sessions in the spring semester focus on the Innovation District initiative and the promotion and tenure process, among other topics.
The two new awards established this year are among several internal honors available to faculty—both at the school and college level and at the institutional level. The Provost’s Office website includes information on institutional teaching, research and public service awards, as well as career achievement awards for contributions that span multiple mission areas.
In addition to pursuing institutional honors, faculty are encouraged to compete for national and international awards that align with their career stage and achievements. The Office of Research maintains a list of some of the most prestigious and competitive external awards for faculty members.
Meg Amstutz, associate provost for academic programs, noted that in many cases the process for preparing dossiers for internal and external awards is similar. For faculty seeking to strengthen their submissions, the Office of Academic Programs keeps successful dossiers on file for review.
“Competitive national awards and honors build the scholarly reputations of faculty members while also highlighting the University of Georgia as one of America’s leading public universities,” Amstutz said. “Our faculty are outstanding, and it’s always rewarding to see them earn the recognition they truly deserve.”
